The prophet then enters, on the part of God, into a long detail of threats against Sennacherib, and promises in favor of Hezekiah and his people. Without following these details, step by step, we shall endeavour to draw from them some useful instructions. First, we observe, that the Lord severely reprimands the pride and impiety of Sennacherib, and calls him to account for them, saying, “ Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed ? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high ? even 1 against the Holy One of Israel.” If God often seems to disregard the blasphemies of his enemies, as he sometimes appears not to hearken to the prayers of his people, yet the time shall at length come when each shall receive an answer, and reap according as they have sown. The Lord, who is patient towards all men, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance," allows a certain time to the ungodly, during which they may put forth all the vileness of their impiety, and indulge themselves in blasphemies and outrages, without his appearing to regard them. Unhappily, instead of understanding that this goodness of God invites them to repent, they often take occasion from it to strengthen themselves in wickedness. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, their heart is fully set in them to do evil,” Eccl. viii. 11. and they say, “Let the Lord make speed and hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it.” They say, with the ungodly of former times, “ The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.” Meanwhile, the mighty God, who now hideth himself, shall one day appear, to the confusion of his enemies, and then he will speak to them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure : “ I tell you,” says he who shall judge the world, “that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment.” Matt. xii. 36. Let the ungodly then tremble, for they are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; and what will be their confusion, when the Lord, whom they have blasphemed, shall suddenly appear before them in his glory, surrounded with his mighty angels, and say to them, as he said to Sennacherib, “ Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed ? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice and lifted up eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.” Again I say, Tremble ye ungodly; “for the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." Jude 15. Children of God, pray for the ungodly, and bear their outrages with patience, since God himself endures those by which they insult him to his face. Be not shaken when you see them braving the Almighty with impunity, during the time of his patience, and spreading like the green bay tree. Say not, like the people of old, “How doth God know? and is there knowledge with the Most High? Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.” Say, on the contrary, Be it so; yet God shall judge the just and the unjust. Remember that it is written, “ The Lord shall laugh at the wicked, because he seeth that his day is coming. The wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs ; they shall con : sume, into smoke shall they consume away" Remember that it is written, “ Wait on the Lord and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it. I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree: yet he passed away, and lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.” Ι Among the things with which the Lord reproaches Sennacherib, one is, that he had boasted by his messengers of the success which he had hitherto obtained, and which he still expected to obtain, by means of the multitude of his chariots. In the account which is given us of the discourse of Sennacherib's messengers, we do not find exactly the same expressions, as those which are here used. But God, who sounds the depths of the heart, saw all these boastings in the heart of Sennacherib, though outwardly he expressed himself with more moderation. From this we may draw two important inferences; first, that God seeth that pride which makes as say, I have done, I have said ; I will do, I will say. It is to this that St. James alludes, when he says: “Ye rejoice in your boasting," and of which “ All such rejoicing is evil.” The second inference is, that God judges us more by the feelings of our hearts, than by our words; and that even when we are able to moderate the outward expression of our pride, he reads the development of it in the bottom of our hearts, and regards as spoken what is only thought. Sennacherib had spoken in contemptuous terms of the God of Hezekiah ; and in addressing him he treats him as an enraged person and as a wild beast, which it is, necessary to restrain with a hook and bridle. He executes towards him that sentence, “ Those that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.” He tells him, • The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, he tells us, and laughed thee to scorn ; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.” He tells him that he “ shall not shoot an arrow into the city," and addresses him in this humiliating language: “Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult, is come into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way which thou camest. With what a tone of superiority and disdain does the Lord speak even to those of his enemies who appear most formidable! The very tone in which he threatens them is calculated to restore to us our confidence, and to make us regard them in their proper place, which is that of poor worms of the earth which he is able to destroy by the breath of his mouth. The Lord repels the threats of Sennacherib with such a tone of authority, as to make us at once feel that with him to speak and to act are one and the same thing. We see that he makes no account of that numerous army, which Sennacherib had brought against Jerusalem, and in which he gloried, saying, “ With the sole of my foot I have dried up all the rivers of besieged places." We feel that he who speaks here is that ” mighty one of whom it is said, “ All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing and vanity. It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grass-hoppers: that bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.” Isa. xl. 17, 22, 23. It would be well for us, when we are terrified by the threats of the wicked, to read those threats which the Lord denounces against them in the Scriptures, and to remember that while the threats of the wicked are often weak and powerless, those of the Almighty are like so many arrows shot by an uner ring hand, and which inevitably carry with them the vengeance of Him who hath said, that “ He will repay his enemies to the face.” Let us see what are the means by which the Lord declares he will subdue Sennacherib. He tells him that he will lead him about like an intractable animal, putting “a hook in his nose and a bridle in his lips." The Lord must rule; all must obey him and do his will ; and they who are not willing to be led by love, ! shall be driven by force. The soul that is intractable, and will not be drawn by “the bands of love and the cords of a man,” must expect that the Lord will put a “ hook in the nose, and a bridle in the lips.” Ye then, to whom the Almighty addresses these gracious words, “ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls !" refuse not to take upon you the easy yoke of that Lord who will accomplish in you that which he commands, and teach you to do his will, conducting you by his Spirit in an even path. Remember that if you refuse the teaching of the Holy Spirit and the yoke of love, you have reason to expect that the Lord will teach you by the rod and by chastisement. “ Be not," then, “ as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding; whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle." Let the consideration of this power of our God, who subdueth the most furious of his enemies by leading them where he pleaseth like muzzled animals, cheer and comfort us, when we meet with those whose rage and injuries, threats and execrations, make us tremble. Let us remember, that however violent and however numerous they may be, the Lord can lead them back like Sennacherib, by the way which they came; he puts “a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them |